The Future Is Past (The Future Is Now)
by PirateOwl
Summary: Emma avoids Granny's in the wake of 5.08, but she can't avoid it forever.


Emma barely set foot in Granny's Dinner since that terrible day in Camelot. She tried once. She wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, the way Granny's makes them, something normal, something to let her forget that she is the Dark One, forget that Killian won't have anything to do with her like this. She wants normal, she wants her family, Henry, Killian. Instead, all she can see is him lying on the floor, bleeding out, obviously in pain but trying to reassure her, begging her to let him go. She leaves without ordering anything because she can't afford to show weakness. The Dark One can't break down sobbing in a restaurant. (She does, once she is safely away.)

The next time is on the return from Camelot. Hatred carries her through. She thinks she understands Killian, understands Hook in that moment. She understands how a memory so sharp, so terrible, can carry a person, can drive them, how much easier anger is than grief. And she know she has to fix this, because if she doesn't all that hatred will be meant for her. (Her own hatred and his.)

She doesn't even try after that. She magics away whatever food she wants, leaving money in it's place. It might seem strange to some for the Dark One to be so conscientious about paying, but Emma used to be a thief and she is so much more than that now. At least that is what she tells herself. She has no idea why Granny makes the food for the orders she calls in. Maybe the old former werewolf sympathizes with someone trapped in the darkness.

And then Killian is gone, and so is the Darkness. Once again he asked her to let him go and she did this time and she misses him. (She misses the Darkness too sometime, although she won't admit it, even to herself. She still doesn't sleep, not much, but she feels exhausted afterwards.) Her family wants to go to Granny's and she goes, not because she wants to, but because she doesn't have a good reason not to. She forces herself not stare at that place on the floor where he had lain dying. She tries to focus on the grilled cheese and onions rings and not on the floor. (That is what he always picked up for her so it doesn't get her mind off him.) She could swear there is a bloodstain there, but that shouldn't be possible. The curse should have cleared that away, but it couldn't clear away the sight from her mind, blood seeping through his fingers, running onto the floor, onto the field of flowers. Her family is squeezed in the booth around her, all except Killian, so she can't run. The sandwich and onion rings go cold while the others linger over their meal and Emma tries not to break down. She manages, but she also doesn't go back, and as soon as she is out of the booth she runs.

Emma leads the charge into the Underworld. She carries her gun and sword, just in case her magic isn't enough. Snow tries to talk her out of killing Hades. "Please, listen, you can't." It makes her want to do it even more.

Suddenly Killian is there in the entrance to the room, a little too thin, bearing scars she doesn't know by heart, but alive, or something close to it, and the most beautiful sight she has ever seen.

"Swan," he whispers, and she runs to his side, the lord of the underworld forgot on the floor of his own domain. "You found me."

"Of course I did," she says.

"I hardly dared hope," he says, words whispered against her hair as they hold each other tightly, both afraid to let go.

"Happy endings start with hope," Emma replies, and realizes that maybe she believes that.

She watches the fresh scar on his neck the entire boat ride back to Storybrooke. She has heard what happened to Liam and is terrified they will leave the Underworld and she will lose him again. She can still see in her memory blood leaking through his fingers, the pain on his face, him whispering our future is now. She clings to his hand like a lifeline (he clings to hers just as tightly,) and prays she won't watch him die a fourth time. The entire trip passes and the scar remains mercifully inert. She doesn't breath easy until they are standing safely on dry land in Storybrooke.

"What do you need?" she asks him when they disembark.

"You," he replies simply, not letting go of her hand. "I just need you."

There are still scars there, and not ones that can be seen, things they will have to address sooner or later, but for now they are too exhausted and too relieved to care about that.

"You need some real food. Do they not have any in the Underworld?" Snow asks, suddenly very parental.

"It's no Granny's," he says with a tired smile.

She doesn't want to go back there, but she will, if that's what he wants. This is about what Killian needs and she _wants_ to be with him, even if that means braving Granny's diner.

She tries to force herself to remain calm when they enter together, to not allow her eyes to drift to that place on the floor, to not allow her memories to drift back there.

"Something wrong, Love?" Killian asks gently. His eyes track her gaze. "Ah. That was then. Eyes on me now, Love," he says, and she tears her gaze away from the floor, to Killian's too thin face. "That's over. That's the past."

"This is the future," she says, looking at him, keeping her eyes locked on his.

"Aye. This is the future."


End file.
